“Then will come the housewarming. Did your mother and Jeanie get through all they expected?”
“Yes, and they have a good feast for John. I am going to build a house when I am twenty-one.”
Agnes laughed. “Whom will you put in it?” she asked saucily.
“You.”
“Archie M’Clean! How do you know you will?”
“I say I will,” he replied doggedly. “I’ve as good a right as any one to choose my girl. I am eighteen, and many of the boys marry at my age; but if I wait three years, you will be eighteen then.”
“Oh, but—No, no, Archie, I’m too young yet to think of such a thing. My father needs me, and my mother will be coming. I’ll think of nobody, of no lad, till I see my mother again. In three years—why, who knows?—you may change your mind; there’ll be many another girl in the settlement by then.”
“And many another lad, maybe.”
“Well, then, so much the better.”
“I’ll not change my mind,” said Archie. “I’m not a great talker, Agnes, but I know what I want, and when I make up my mind I keep to it.”